Tag: motivation

I was thinking back to the days when I used to blog all the time and I realized what was different –

– I didn’t have *much* of a social life

– I went out and did things to pass the time (biking, exercising, sight-seeing in the city, drawing)

– I wrote about the mundane happenings in my life in a ‘dear diary’ format. (now I do that on Facebook)

The cool thing about those days is that I actually connected with people on a more personal level and made genuine friends writing about life.

The down side is that my family didn’t really appreciate me writing about *their* lives in *my* journal—they wanted their privacy, after all.

Now that I’m an adult, and I’ve had things about my life spread through the family grapevine without my permission in the past, I kinda *get* that feeling. Don’t tell a story that’s not yours to tell.

Unfortunately, that leaves me in a little bit of a writing rut. There’s not much that I *do* any more, not that I feel worthy of blogging about.

I suppose this is my attempt to change that. I’m going to go back to the dear-diary format, except that I’m going to respect the wishes of my family and friends. That means you’ll see mundane stuff here, but I’m also going to write about my experiences that might resonate with you.

Entry 1: Legend of the Triceratops

So getting back on the fitness bandwagon, I’ve been more active in the Nerd Fitness Academy Facebook community. The women in that group are inspiring at every level of fitness and it really motivates me to keep up. It’s not unusual to see someone’s progress pictures put up and then to see a whole slew of comments reflecting on where the changes are observable to the third party. They’re all positive.

When someone asks ‘what is it about this community that makes us so judgment free and welcoming?’ the resounding reply is that people are still judgy, but they check their attitude at the proverbial door. ‘Not here,’ is the general consensus. I think that’s great, because little by little, I think it helps the women in our group to become less judgmental overall. If you have enough practice putting your snark in check, eventually it becomes second nature.

Well, then someone who didn’t get the memo to check the snark at the door decided to comment on someone else’s progress photos. They weren’t outright attacking the person, but they were not exactly appreciative of the person’s decision to post progress pics in their undies. Such remarks were made as “women shouldn’t lift,” and “have some class.” It wasn’t fair, and I think it stung a fair few of us to read her scathing retort. It blew up, not because those two comments are wholly against the NF way of life, but because this person only had something to say when a woman who was not already fit decided to share her progress.

Another Rebel stepped in, though, and delivered one of the best rebuttals I’d ever read.

“WOMEN should do whatever the [expletive removed] they want to do, be it body building, bikini competitions, ballet, yoga, or anything else they want. WOMEN should be proud of the body they have regardless of if it “looks like a mans” or looks like a [expletive removed] triceratops.

…Here, we love. Each other, ourselves, the good, the bad, the big, the little, the round, the sharp, the muscle, the fat… We don’t judge, we don’t criticize, even if we don’t understand or believe the same as someone else, there is nothing but love. I will tolerate ABSOLUTELY nothing besides love and respect in this group. Join us or leave us.” – Ginny Mason

Since that post, the women of the Academy have been sending “Rawrs” of appreciation to each other, buying merchandise to support the cause thanks to a little pop-up shop that another Rebel made, and generally making better decisions because we’re all thinking “what would a triceratops do?”

It’s even permeated my home life and ‘being a triceratops’ is what me and Jeff have been using as words of encouragement for each other.

Jeff: I’m not doing too well

Jeff: [Explanation]

Me: Can you be a Triceratops?

I mean, like, screw what other people think, because you’re freaking awesome.

I know [detailed related to explanation]

You’ve done great things with your life, and you’re doing so much more. You need to tell yourself that you’re a [expletive] Triceratops and trample anyone who says otherwise.

Another time, we were supposed to go to the store, but I had been wearing shorts around the house, even though I hadn’t shaved in about a week or so 😛 I told him that I’d need to change first and he said “No you don’t! Triceratops don’t care what other people think!”

LOL

It was absurd but so encouraging anyway. Under guise of being a Triceratops, I’ve avoided some sweets, gone on more walks, and made it down to the gym more often than I probably would’ve without that fire.

It seems to be tapering down a little bit in the Academy, but I’m going to make a post later today about how I’m a Triceratops for going to the gym when I *really* didn’t want to. RAWR, they’ll all say, and I’ll puff up my chest and nod in agreement—RAWR indeed.

I’ve blogged in the past about how much happier and more content I feel when I am following the core strengths of health and wellness – including eating well, sleeping well, exercising, and making time for personal goals. So, it stands to reason that now, more than ever, I need to get back into the patterns of healthy eating, getting enough (and higher quality) rest, exercising, and making time for personal goals.

This blog has become more of a personal journal for me, which will definitely incorporate health and wellness, but it’s always been about more than that. For me, it’s been about recognizing the fact that my journey — whether it’s to weight loss, muscle gain, social changes, or family life — is going to be completely different from someone else’s journey, even if we share many of the same characteristics. To that end, I still have every intention of maintaining this blog and getting back into writing about things that are fun, interesting, or relative to my personal narrative.

My day-to-day fitness narrative is going to be captured at Nerd Fitness. It’s a community of fitness-minded individuals and I really feel like that’s the sort of encouragement I could use at the moment. What that means for the MegsFitness blog is that I’ll be cross-posting my weekly summaries here, so that at least part of this journal can resonate with the “-Fitness” part of the name 😀

Current Level of Fitness: Sedentary. It’s been 2 years since I’ve worked out consistently due to a severe back injury after the Warrior Dash.

“End Game” Goal: Working out 4+x/week, Settling at a healthy weight, ideally ~180, but more importantly having functional strength and physical health.

Short-term Goal: Begin working out 1-3x/week, at a beginner level to become re-acclimated to the fitness world. Begin reintegrating Paleo Lifestyle into eating plan

Plan of Action: Use Nerd Fitness to launch new fitness goals; integrate fitness guild with gamer guild for inspiration. Generate weekly goals in the areas of nutrition, exercise, and personal. Update status on goals at least weekly.

Like this:

I haven’t taken a picture of food since the cupcake. I’ve been eating fairly well, though. Notable foods from yesterday include grilled steak with mixed veggies, and a doughnut. Not at the same time, but you see what I mean by “fairly” well. I basically covered both ends of the spectrum, there.

The new job has been going exceptionally well. I just need to remember that it’s only my first couple of days, so they’re supposed to be easy. The only problem I have now is leaving on time…I stayed late again last night and my car was the only one left in the lot.

I tried a spin class yesterday, though, and actually had fun! Of course my butt muscles hurt today, despite my efforts that included using a towel for cushioning 😛

Today I’ve got a lunch packed, and work out clothes packed, so I’m ready to take on the next group fitness class.

Like this:

The 1st mini challenge is off to a great start. Nicky made use of her social network to draw in many votes yesterday, and I’m proud to report that we are in

*drumroll…*

Ninth place! At the beginning of the day yesterday, we had only about 8 votes, so to have 40 votes at this point is quite a feat! Way to go, Nicky!

Now, some people are wondering, why do we care about votes? What’s the point? Well, the point is motivation and accountability. If you’re asking people for votes, you’re explaining what it’s for—and the more people that know you’re part of a challenge, the more people who will help you meet your goals or cheer you on in your efforts. For example, someone yesterday gave me a Cadburry Crème Egg. I told them I was part of a 12-week weight loss challenge, and gave it back to them—and asked them for their vote! Now, this person knows what’s up and won’t offer me chocolate any more, and we added 1 vote to our total.

How are you doing with your personal goals? Please comment with ONE or more successes from the past week 🙂

Like this:

Is it just me, or is WordPress being weird? I usually include photos in my posts and this one *STARTED* fine, but then I went back to edit the draft of this post and the photo exploded. The preview looks fine, but, I dunno…I’m typing right now and all I can see is the orange and it’s super zoomed in and… let’s just say it doesn’t look like an orange at the moment @_@;

Ahem.

I’ve been away a lot lately because, well, life happens–I needed to be there for family and so I was. This involved going back to Canada for a funeral service just a week and a half after we had come home from Canada, but it was well worth the journey, just to gain some closure, healing, and time with family.

I’m at a point, where I want to get back to what I originally intended with this blog–cooking, working out, getting healthy.

Today, I’m spring cleaning around the apartment and I’ll be cooking up a few things for this week’s dinners. I’ve got my grocery list planned out and the meal plans, too. Now it’s just a matter of executing on the plan:

Like this:

Yesterday was spent cleaning house and practicing iaido. Since class us across town, and an hour and a half on its own, going to iaido takes up 3 hours. Add in getting ready to go and cooling down, well, half the day is shot.

It’s worth it, though. It’s a really enjoyable pastime. It just means Sunday becomes the chore day instead of Saturday.

Today I got the menu planning done for the week and the grocery shopping, too. I got our budget up to date, ordered my text books for school, cleaned the kitchen, visited family, and even made time to work on a drawing for a friend.

On Pinterest today, I found the idea to make your own instant oatmeal packets. To that end, I bought oats and chia seeds at the Co op today.